The moment you step off your plane at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, you face a barrage of signs. That’s always been the case, but the old neon signs of the ‘50s and ‘60s are rapidly being replaced by giant LED displays announcing concerts, fine dining, magic acts and shopping malls. Everyone’s vying for your attention to tell you about the latest, greatest, biggest or best.

That approach continued last week in the massive Las Vegas Convention Center, a complex as large as 56 football fields. At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, more than 1,700 companies (including Cisco) demonstrated their latest technology innovations. Every booth had someone imploring you to come see the latest digital camera, mobile production studio, lighting grid or satellite uplink.

Yet there was another strong message that came through to me during my visits to the show floor: partnership. As the traditional broadcast suppliers seek to move their products and services into the IP-enabled realm, you’re seeing more strategic alliances being formed to accomplish that end.

For example, over the past three years, Cisco’s Sports & Entertainment Solutions Group has been partnering with EVS, the digital video production leaders, to transform the way video is delivered to sports fans in stadiums and arenas around the world. The formula is quite simple: EVS captures massive amounts of game content on its video servers and Cisco has the wired and wireless networks in place to deliver the replays of touchdowns, goals and slam-dunks to every screen in the stadium. Read More »

Again, Marketing Velocity will be held at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Partner Summit will be held at the Palais des Congrès de Montréal. Shuttle service between hotels and the Palais des Congrès de Montréal will be provided if you are attending both events. Attire is business casual, and jeans are perfectly acceptable during the event.

Here is your quick checklist to be sure you’re ready for next week:

☐ 1. Register for Virtual Partner Summit (VPS)From VPS, you can stream sessions, interact with attendees and more! Explore VPS before the event to familiarize yourself with the features. Register now so you won’t miss out. Read More »

Each week, we’ll highlight the most important Cisco Partner Ecosystem news and stories, as well as point you to important, Cisco-related partner content you may have missed along the way. Here’s what you might have missed this week:

My latest blog adds on to the information that I’ve highlighted these past few weeks and I’ll have one more blog for you next week. That final checklist will serve as one last reminder of all the last minute items you may want to address to be fully up to speed for this year’s events.

This is the fourth of year of a program that provides partners with the opportunity to share their thoughts and impressions about the news they hear about during Cisco Partner Summit.

As we continue to evolve the Partner Ambassador program, we have added a few ambassadors this year that are focused on Marketing Velocity and will continue on through Partner Summit as well. We also continue to shape the mix ambassadors with the inclusion of global resellers, distributors, and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) that more closely represent the participants at Partner Summit.

Take a look through this blog and I’ll make sure you have everything you need to stay updated leading up to, and throughout the week of Marketing Velocity and Partner Summit.

Marketing Velocity will be held on Monday, April 27 at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Partner Summit will be held Tuesday, April 28 – 30 at the Palais des Congrès de Montréal. Shuttle service between hotels and the Palais des Congrès de Montréal will be provided if you are attending both events. Attire is business casual, and jeans are perfectly acceptable during the event.

Review this check list and let me know if you have any questions via the comments section: Read More »

Heading into Cisco Marketing Velocity and Partner Summit in Montreal at the end of the month, we have been bringing you plenty of event information. Today’s entry is not about logistic information though. It is about Cisco’s partners, and how several of them are assisting us in a big way this year as partner social ambassadors for Marketing Velocity and Partner Summit.

This marks the fourth year of the Cisco Partner Ambassador program. It provides partners with the opportunity to share their thoughts and impressions about the news they hear about during Cisco Partner Summit. As we continue to evolve the Partner Ambassador program, we are working hard to shape the mix of global resellers, distributors, and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) to more closely represent the participants at Partner Summit. Just like last year, we even have some partner ambassadors who won’t be onsite in Montreal, but will be joining us via Virtual Partner Summit (VPS).

Our partner ambassadors will be blogging and tweeting before, during, and after Marketing Velocity and Partner Summit. In fact, we have a few ambassadors this year who will be covering Marketing Velocity specifically, as well as continuing on to give you their thoughts on Partner Summit as well.

As always, we’re excited to hear their perspectives and look forward to sharing their content with you. Be sure to follow our hashtags, #mktgvelocity and #ciscops15, to follow their content and to offer your own feedback.

Now let’s meet the ambassadors for Marketing Velocity and Partner Summit for 2015. Each partner social ambassador was kind enough to provide some information about how they play in the Cisco Ecosystem and where you can track their social media information. Read More »

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